I said, suddenly remembering the name shouted by one of them – the one, I also remembered, with a sickening lurch, who wouldn’t be shouting anything any more, from a mouth rammed full of white-hot metal.
Einar’s head came up with a snap, like a hound on a scent. He looked at me, then the man at his feet, drew out a long seax from under his cloak and jerked the man’s head back.
‘Time to go, Einar,’ Pinleg warned, looking down at the harbour, where shouts and lights split the darkness.
‘Starkad Ragnarsson?’ Einar demanded of the man, ignoring Pinleg. The seax came to his nose and the man saw what would happen, blinked, swallowed snot and blood and then nodded. Einar flicked the seax up anyway, gave a sharp curse and flung the man’s head away, so that he sprawled, panting and writhing like a whipped dog, the blood spurting from his split nose. Ketil Crow kicked him viciously as he passed.
They moved swiftly, in a tight group – or as tight as they could along the wooden walkways – Ketil Crow bringing up the rear, turning now and then like a huge elk at bay. We caught up with Valknut and Skapti, a moaning, half-conscious Ulf between them.
As we neared the gate out of the town, there was a flurry of discarded clubs, blades stuffed inside tunics and Ulf-Agar was swathed in Skapti’s heavy blue-wool cloak, to hide his state. Like a party of drunks we spilled out of the gate, past the two bored, cold, envious guards and on to the Guest Hall.
Inside were only Oathsworn – all the women had been told to leave – and all of them were armed. Illugi had Ulf-Agar set down near the fire and bent to look at him, peeling off Skapti’s cloak. Skapti took it back, staring at the ominous stains with distaste, before bundling it up and moving to stow it in his sea-chest.
Einar put mailed guards on the door, then sat by the fire, elbow on one knee, stroking his moustaches. The Oathsworn spoke in low, quick tones, sharing the tale of the battle; now and then a sharp bark of laughter rang out.
There was a great thumping at the doors and everyone fell silent, half crouching in the red twilight like a pack of feral dogs, eyes narrowed. Steel gleamed. The thumping came again and a faint voice.
‘It’s Bagnose,’ said one of the mailed guards. Einar indicated to open the Hall door and Geir stumbled in, growling.
‘Fuck you, what took you so long? Thor’s farting up a gale out there and you keep me …’ Geir fell silent, seeing the red-lit faces of armed men all staring at him, seeing that something had happened.
Einar didn’t explain, simply summoned him. ‘You followed the little monk?’
‘I did,’ said Bagnose, looking round for ale. Steinthor, naked from the waist and strapped with ragged bindings, handed him one and Bagnose grinned and swallowed. Einar waited patiently.
‘He went to the Trade Harbour and a timber hov there. No, not a hov ... a Christ temple of a sort. Half-built. He met someone there.’ He paused, grinning, and took another swallow, then saw Einar’s eyes growing dangerous. ‘Vigfus. Old Skartsmadr Mikill himself.’
Vigfus. Vigfus. The name was spread in mutters around the Hall until someone – Hring, I thought – asked the question I wanted to ask. Who the fuck was Vigfus?
Einar ignored it. ‘Has he a ship?’
‘A solid, fat knarr in the Trade Harbour. And maybe twenty or thirty men – good fighting men, too, fresh from Bluetooth’s wars, though these ones are from the losing side, I am thinking.’
Einar stroked his moustache for a moment, then looked up at Illugi. ‘Illugi Godi and Skapti and Ketil Crow: we will talk this out.’
‘We should get out of this hall,’ growled a voice from the back. ‘We are trapped here.’
‘What do you think will happen?’ Einar shot back.
‘Bluetooth’s man, this Starkad, will come. If we don’t come out, he will burn us until we do,’ answered one called Kvasir, nicknamed Spittle.
Einar laughed, though there was no cheer in it. ‘Bluetooth, last I heard, was King of the Danes and Norway. Birka belongs to the King of the Swedes. He might be offended if Bluetooth’s war hounds ran around killing and burning people in this main trade town.’
‘No king cares about Birka. Birka is its own master,’ Finn Horsehead pointed out. ‘Lambisson is master here, in the name of the King of the Swedes. If the king still is Olof, that is. Eirik was fighting him for it, last I heard, and since Eirik is also known as Victorious, there’s a clue as to which one to put your money on.’
There was laughter at that.
‘Lambisson it is who has allowed Bluetooth’s men into Birka with full steel in their hands,’ answered Valknut. ‘Which gives you a clue as to whom to put your wager on for treachery. He is a practical man for money.’
There was more grim laughter at that. Einar scanned the faces, seeing the half-fearful, half-savage looks and the eyes gleaming in the red firelight. ‘Stand out in the wind if you want,’ he shrugged. ‘But Illugi, Skapti, Ketil Crow and myself will talk this out. Quietly, over some ale, in this warm hall.’
There were mutters about holding a proper Thing over something so important and fresh arguments began. Someone – I was sure it was Eyvind – said loudly, ‘Burn.’
Geir Bagnose blew froth off his fresh horn of ale and began to skald, loudly and with feeling. I winced as I realised he was making poetry out of the rescue of Ulf-Agar and, though I knew why he did it, wished he didn’t. But men stopped arguing to listen.
My father slid in beside me and clapped me on the shoulder. ‘You did well.’
‘I shat myself several times,’ I answered truthfully. ‘I should have waited … but he was screaming fit to shave the hairs off your arms.’
‘Aye,’ my father agreed, ‘he was bad handled at that—’ He broke off as men raised voices in appreciation of a particularly good kenning about ‘grim eye of the wyrm’, it being a clever play on my name. ‘Just as well Ulf is out of his head,’ he added. ‘He’ll hate this.’
‘He played his part,’ I argued. ‘He was defending my back in the end, armed only with a hot forge-iron.’
‘Let’s hope Bagnose puts it in, then,’ my father chuckled, then raised his voice as Geir stopped to take another pull at his drinking horn.
‘Well done, Bagnose. Now that the Hakon’s skald, the Plagiarist, is silenced by the death of his king in Norway, there’s service there for a good court verse-maker.’
Geir raised his horn in acknowledgement, wiped his lips, then stuck the tip of the horn in the earth floor to keep it upright while he continued extemporising verses.
‘Just thank the gods he isn’t Skallagrimsson,’ my father added and I hastily made a sign against the evil eye. Egil was a famous poet, but a man with blood behind his eyes and a great elk head with beetling brows that, it was assuredly reported, you could hit with Thor’s hammer and not dent. He was also as mad a killer as a wounded boar and not a man whose ale-elbow you wanted to nudge.
Which reminded me of our predicament – and questions I had. ‘Who is Starkad? And this Vigfus? And—?’
‘One foot first, then another,’ my father answered, leaning closer and dropping his voice. He ticked them off on his blunt, splintered-nail fingers. ‘Starkad Ragnarsson is one of Bluetooth’s best, a man loved by women and feared by men, as they say. He is possibly the only man Einar fears, so we should fear him, too. He has the reputation of a good boar dog – once he has sunk his teeth in, you will never get his jaws out save by slaying.’
I mulled that one over moodily, while my father raised another finger.
‘Vigfus – no one has ever called him anything else. Apart from Skartsmadr Mikill, Quite the Dandy, which he hates. It seems he always dresses in the dark, as they say, for he has a worse way with clothing than